Custom

Details

Date Published

May 12, 2019

CPU Clock Rate

3.7 GHz

Description

This is my first PC build from scratch as an upgrade from this PC, a custom built PC that I bought years ago when my laptop had died. After replacing a few parts I decided to start over and build my own PC from the ground up. After months of browsing through hundreds of builds on here and double-checking with friends for build advice, I finally pulled the trigger and put it all together. Thank you to all of you guys who posted on here and helped me piece together a new computer indirectly through your own builds.

I use this PC for ultrawide gaming, photo and video editing, and SolidWorks (I'm an engineering student). Handles everything I throw at it.

I wanted to go overkill on this build and make sure that no parts inhibited each other, so I'd have room to upgrade in the future without having to replace the whole system in order to add in a certain part. I stayed within reasonable value/dollar, hence the 2700X as opposed to Intel's 9900K, and a 2080 instead of the 2080-Ti (I used Excel spreadsheets with FPS and benchmark data compared to the price as the basis of my decision making). After running dual monitors on my previous build, I loved the concept of having so much space. For this build, I decided to upgrade to ultrawide in order to get rid of the spacing between monitors. In the excel spreadsheet I mentioned above, I narrowed my GPU range down to cards that could handle ultrawide gaming, namely the 1080-Ti, 2080, and 2080-Ti specifically. The 2080 paired with the Ryzen had the best performance per dollar ratio, so that's the CPU / GPU pair that I went with.

I originally decided on 16 GB of RAM after experiencing firsthand that it was plenty. When it came down to buying, 2x16 GB was actually cheaper per stick than 4x8 (in case I wanted to double the RAM in the future) so I went with 2x16 instead. After having problems with Aura ("Asus Aura stopped working..." still isn't fixed) and virtually none with iCue, looking back I would have opted for the Corsair Vengeance instead of the TridentZ.

After hearing the vocal negative reviews about CAM software, I opted for a Corsair AIO and fans. As mentioned, iCue has given me no problems. To limit the amount of RGB software (and subsequent problems when running multiple), I went for both a Corsair keyboard and mouse.

Originally I was looking at a 1000W PSU to allow some headroom for SLI or more SATA drives in the future, but a friend of mine recommended an 850W so as to keep the wattage within the optimal range of the PSU (50%-80% of the wattage used). This build uses about 450 currently.

I opted for a M.2 SSD instead of a SATA SSD after I got sucked in the supposed speed comparisons between the two (3 GB/s vs. 500 MB/s). Definitely overkill, and YouTube load time comparisons between the two showed that the difference was minute (around 1 sec difference for gaming loading screens). It works great though, Windows boots quickly and programs like Photoshop and Lightroom run quickly compared to my old PC.

Every accessory that was purchased for this build in addition to the main parts is listed at the bottom of the parts list (threaded PSU cables included).

Yeah... Pretty much everyone calls NVMe, m.2. Its just easier to say, I say m.2 as well, although NVMe is the correct terminology. Some people who are grammar Nazis, get soooo triggered by this but I personally dont care, we know what you mean by m.2

uh, no. I'm a frequent poster on several forums, and the majority say NVMe, or PCIe. you wouldn't refer to a graphics card as a PCIe Expansion card would you?
Would you refer to a i7-8700k as a LGA1151 socketed chip?

There are M.2 SATA, and NVMe.
Both are different. Someone might get suckered in to paying 20$ for a M.2 860 evo when they thought it was NVMe, or someone might see that their laptop has a m.2 slot, and put in a SATA SSD when the M.2 slot was PCIe only.

Wait wait, all 8th gen i5s come with Intel UHD 630 graphics right?? If you google "UHD 630 mobile vs gt710", it shows that the integrated graphics preform better than the gt710. Is there something in Solidworks that makes it run better with a dedicated GPU, even if normally it performs worse than integrated graphics?

It looks like only 2 intake fans going through a radiator and what looks like 3 exhaust with no obstruction - are you at all concerned about negative air pressure making this a dust magnet?

I was considering the same set up for my build (with a Fractal Design Define S2 case) but am now thinking of stripping out the top 2 fans to keep the internal air pressure positive, and maybe even squeezing another intake fan on the base.

Hey what did you us to take tho photos, and on what settings they look really good. Your build also looks amazing, try the lights on blue and pink, friends has a build like that and has the rgb on blue ans pink and it looks really nice. Upvote from be ^